


please don't worry, lover

by norikae



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Jun-centric, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 18:17:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15734820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norikae/pseuds/norikae
Summary: It tried to claw my face off and then rolled over and presented its stomach, he writes, vision swimming with fatigue.It made me think of you.-





	please don't worry, lover

**Author's Note:**

> the chinese lyrics are from mindy quah's crazy for you, i.e. the song jun covered on his birthday. they can be read, roughly, "this city is so loud, but / it cannot assuage my loneliness" but i didn't like the way it sounded in english so i left it in mandarin
> 
> additional inspiration/listening: monsta x's crazy in love, specifically minhyuk's line: don't let me say goodbye / let me love you right
> 
> this is not proofread im so sorry

_to call at seven-oh-three_  
_and on your machine I slur a plea_  
_for you to come home_

(death cab for cutie, a lack of color)

-

There are spaces in the atmosphere, now: Where _he_ met _me_ , where the lines blurred so they became one. Things torn apart don’t fit back together the same; Minghao taught him that. He did a lot of that, teaching Junhui things.

In the narrative inside his head, there is only a before, no after. It might explain the post-it on the fridge, the stack of overdue DVDs he replays every Thursday night like clockwork. Jun calls the Chinese place down the road, says _hello?_ in Mandarin –

 _Ah_ , the middle aged lady on the other end chirps brightly, _I was waiting for your call! Dandan noodles, two servings, right? I’ll put it on your tab._

He hesitates, but it isn’t obvious over the receiver. _Yeah, auntie_ , he confirms. _Extra spicy, you know best!_

A crackly laugh, warm and distant. _You two,_ she says fondly, and he can hear the head shake without seeing it. _It’ll be there in fifteen minutes!_ she tells him, before hanging up.

Junhui swallows around the lead in his throat, and it tastes like shame.

-

He bolts awake, jarred into consciousness by the sound of the ballad he’d set for his alarm. His hands are shaky when he fumbles with the _dismiss_ button, and he drops the phone, suddenly heavy, amongst his covers, shuffling towards the bathroom to brush his teeth.

Muscle memory means he reaches for the right toothbrush without acknowledging the extra cup, morning ablutions completed in a haze. Unbidden, the tune slips into his consciousness – _...这个城市这么吵   不能赶走我寂寥_ _–_

Junhui shakes his head, abruptly upset at himself. He rinses his mouth out, with deliberate attention, jabs the toothbrush down with more force than necessary. There’s a sensation along his skin, tingly and uncomfortable, so he brings his phone into the shower with him, putting on something noisy instead.   

The feeling doesn’t leave him even when all the hot water’s gone and he’s scrubbed his skin sore, so he calls in to work, begging off because of a cold. Sooyoung’s voice is politely concerned as she wishes him to _get well soon, Junhui, the coffee room isn’t the same without you!_ , and even though she’s clearly distracted as she says it, it’s the closest he’s come to meaningful human interaction in weeks.

He promises to come back in better than before on Monday, and manages a gentle huff of laughter when she voices concern over what a new and improved Junhui would be like. When the dial tone sounds, he curls up under his blankets, and tries very hard not to cry.

-

He’d begged, voice high and disconsolate, like disbelief was a tightrope tethered miles and miles above the ground. Somebody had once cruelly told him it was a lack of dignity, laying yourself bare to be taken apart like carrion by so many vultures. Minghao had told him there was nothing wrong with honesty.

“We can just be friends,” he’d cried, reaching for a hand that stayed stubbornly out of reach. “Fifteen years, ‘Hao, most of my – “ a wave of nostalgia had seized him, and, overcome: “- remember the first day of _wushu_ class when you kicked my ass, and I cried, and then _shifu_ had to ask what was wrong, and you refused to apologise, and I wouldn’t stop crying, and – “

“Junhui.” Minghao had this unnerving calm that came over him, sometimes, and when he looked at you it felt like he could see everything. “Do you honestly think you would be able to handle that?”

It had not been unkind, and so he had been given pause. “I – “ It was a physical pain, the thought of holding back from something within his reach. That he wanted, that he’d held before. “No,” he’d said, truthfully, very, very small.

“Then you already know,” Minghao had said, almost wistful. “The distance would kill you, Junhui. Even if it’s only Japan.”

 _And what about you_ , had been on the tip of his tongue, the cavity in his chest already sore. _Would it kill you too, or is this just surgical precision?_

Minghao had checked his phone, gaze flickering briefly. “I have to go,” he’d said, and, in a motion first aborted, reached over, tenderly pressed a hand to the top of Junhui’s head.

Desperately, Junhui remembers blooming into the touch, eyes screwed shut to savour the second before he’s left bereft, sitting alone with at a table with two cups and the world passing by outside. He clings too hard to things, even when he knows he should let go.

-

He isn’t drunk. He could be, but he hates the taste of alcohol, and it would be too convenient, an easy out for the way he’s thoughtlessly tapping away at his screen, message box filling up with stories. It’s five in the morning, and he has to get up and go for work soon, but the thought barely registers as he recounts the cats he saw in the park over the weekend, the way one had curled up in his lap and let him stroke it to sleep under the sun.

 _It tried to claw my face off and then rolled over and presented its stomach_ , he writes, vision swimming with fatigue. _It made me think of you_.

The room is too big, and a heart can become so frighteningly heavy a burden to bear. He only notices what he’s done after he’s done it, a long bubble paragraph of text showing up on his screen and registering _sent_.

Then that same burden, fickle, flees into his throat, and Junhui finds he’s laughing softly, almost-hysterical like he can’t believe the things that happen to him. Sixty-two days and this is how he breaks – and he isn’t keeping count, he isn’t. It’s only that it was a Saturday, and the white text on his screen reads Friday.

He throws a hand over his eyes, exhaling noisily. Sleep seems even more laughable, now, so he rolls out of bed, makes a coffee, and waits for the sun to rise.

-

Given time to reflect, he thinks that there’s more he could’ve done, if only to maintain his sense of self apart from whatever they were. If there is too much silence now it might be because he’d slowly fallen out of contact with his own friends, let them make their own priorities without him because he’d felt selfish for already having one person who was his own.

Minghao had said quietly once that he loved too entirely, eyes strange like he’d felt guilty about the fact. Junhui thinks about it a lot, finds his mind wandering to it, now, the same sentence in his book stuttering senselessly on repeat.

He texts his best friends from high school, tells them truthfully that he misses them, lays out his schedule and asks when they’re free to hang out, his treat. Then he finds a notebook and jots down all the things he wishes he’d said, tries desperately to dissect them, fails, and tries again, until he gets it right.  

-

The day has passed in a reverie, bright sun and old familiar faces dousing him in blinding warmth. Junhui stops by a florist after bidding farewell to Wonwoo and Soonyoung, buying himself a daisy on impulse because they’re cute. The college-age boy behind the counter remarks as much, curling a little ribbon around the wax paper bracketing the stem.

“For anyone important?” he asks, grinning a little bit to reveal sharp teeth.

Junhui blinks, surprised at being spoken to, then shakes his head, a small smile surfacing. “No, ah, it’s just for me.”

The boy makes an exaggerated gasp as he swipes the scissors through the ribbon with a flourish, then instantly turns around to pluck another long, elegant stem out of the bucket behind him, slipping it in with the first flower. “Then the answer to my question is yes,” he says, cheekily, thumping his own chest and narrowly missing stabbing himself with the blades he’s still holding. “Love yourself, my guy.”

Dumbfounded, Junhui only watches as the cheerful worker rings him up for the single daisy he’d requested and hands him the two, bidding him goodbye and a good day with two hands. Outside the sun is setting, and the day is good, longer than they’ve been for a while, somehow more whole.

Even as he’s walking, Junhui reaches for his phone. The joy curling in his chest is so huge he has to share it, so he dials a number by memory, pressing it to his ear automatically as it rings.

He’s about to cross the road when it clicks, and immediately sober, Junhui halts in his tracks, apologising briefly to the couple who nearly bumps into him. His hand jerks, puling the phone away so he can get a good look at his screen to confirm what he thinks he’s just done.

_Minghao_

_Call Time 00:00:01_

His heart stops. Slowly, he brings it back up to his ear, and watches the cars race by. He doesn’t say anything, choosing to just listen to the silence on the other end. Against the panic in his chest, he breathes, and soon it becomes apparent that the world is going nowhere fast.

The realisation emboldens him. He waits, and Junhui doesn’t know how long it is, squinting out into the horizon, but he’s ready to hang up and forgive himself this one last try when there’s a soft clearing of the throat on the other end, an invitation phasing into being.

“Hello?”

-

**Author's Note:**

> wjsdjdkjs abrupt ending sorry
> 
> anyway i really fucking love jun. [exhibit a](http://twitter.com/frogbabey)


End file.
